The Ballard Men
by SouthernChickie
Summary: Set directly after the Crystal Skull Daniel remembers the argument that caused a four year rift with his grandfather.
1. Chapter 1

Four years. Four years since he'd left this place, swearing he'd never come back. Four years since the fight that had that had driven him away from his only family. Ego, pride, and pure Ballard stubbornness had gotten the better of him.

Daniel shook his head and opened the door to what had been his grandfather's home. The dirty little family secret. Crazy granddad in the mental hospital. Crazy grandson exploring the universe. The last remaining members of what had once been a respected and admired academic family. Now they would only be known as the family who believed in aliens. Eccentric geniuses with emphasis on eccentric. The Grey Gardens of the archaeological community.

"May I help you, sir?" the woman behind the desk asked.

"Yes, hi. I'm Daniel Jackson. I'm Nick Ballard's grandson." He leaned on the chest-high counter, signing in.

"Oh, um," the woman behind the partition faltered trying to hide her panic. "Dr. Ballard isn't here," she admitted hesitantly.

"I know," he assured her. "He was with me. But, uh, he passed away. I need to do whatever it is I need to do," he fumbled through the lie. With any luck, they would chalk it up to grieving.

"I'm sorry to hear that, Mr. Jackson," the receptionist stood up. "Let me get the doctor for you."

While she was away, Daniel found himself staring at the security doors that separated the residents from the outside world. He had always wondered why people would voluntarily check themselves into a place like this. After his experience being forcibly committed a few months ago, the idea of going through those doors terrified him. At least Nick and the others had the option to leave if they chose, but the doors still locked. Last time he was on the other side of doors like that they were locked and he was stuck. Trapped. Drugged. Scared. What had it been like for Nick living there? How bad had it been for him to seek refuge here? To know that this was where he belonged?

"Daniel," Dr. Steger greeted him warmly, distracting him from his paranoid nerves. "It's been a long time."

"Yeah," he agreed guiltily shaking Nick's doctor's hand.

"I'm sorry to hear about Nick. He was a great man."

"Thank you."

"Did you get a chance to work it out?" Dr. Steger asked, leading Daniel into the hospital through those terrifying doors.

"We did, actually," Daniel said truthfully.

"I'm glad to hear that." They walked the familiar route to Nick's room. "Is that the…" Dr. Steger let the words _death certificate_ go unsaid as he gestured to the file folder tucked under Daniel's arm.

"Um, yeah, it's everything I have." He offered the documents the SGC had prepared for him. "I don't know if it's the right stuff."

Dr. Steger glanced through. "This is fine," he assured him. "We have you listed as next of kin, so this should be simple. I'll have the paperwork brought to you to sign." He put his hand on Daniel's shoulder. "Do you want help packing his things?"

After years of treating Nick, Dr. Steger knew a great deal of the intimate details of his life: the loss of his daughter, the guilt he associated with choosing not to adopt his grandson, the fear he'd ruined the boy's life by trying to protect him from his own delusions, somehow still dragging him down the same path.

"I'd actually like to do it myself," Daniel said.

"We'll get you some boxes, then."

"Oh." Daniel glanced around the room looking at all the knick-knacks, trinkets and books. "I didn't even think of that."

"You've had more important things on your mind. Take all the time you need."

Daniel thanked the doctor as he left the room with the file, leaving Daniel alone with his grandfather's possessions and memories. Looking around, the first thing he picked up was his favorite picture. He couldn't remember where or when it had been taken, but he was small, cheeks round with baby fat, clinging to his mother's back as she stood next to her father. Three generations of Ballards. Nick, Claire, and her Aap as she called him. Dutch, for Monkey, always climbing, always exploring.

Next to it, in a matching frame, was him, just him, living up to his pet name up in a tree confident with youthful exuberance, standing on a branch with a toothless grin. Behind that one, adult Daniel on his first dig as a doctor of Archaeology with the same grin, that same exuberance, that same confidence.

All the pictures in Nick's room were of him, Daniel realized. There was a leap from when he was eight- before the accident, climbing trees to when he was fifteen, holding a high school diploma wearing a UCLA baseball cap. The picture he had sent to surprise Nick with his good news. College-bound, ready to continue the family tradition. How had he never noticed? Nick's entire life to choose from, and he showcased Daniel for his visitors. Was he that self-absorbed that he'd glanced right over them as a given. As some sort of birthright? How had he not seen it all along?

It was Nick's way of supporting him. Of being proud of him. Of saying what the two of them spent the better part of two decades dancing around.

"Idiot," he chastised himself, sitting on Nick's bed and starting to gathering his things to pack.

There was a small pile of pictures on the bed ready to be packed when an orderly arrived with several boxes for him. Daniel carefully started placing pictures in the box.

There were no houses in the background, no picket fences, no little league. Everything was deserts and jungles, pink sunburned cheeks and priceless artifacts trusted to tiny six-year-old hands.

"Hope there wasn't a symbiote in there," he mumbled to himself looking a picture of him and the canopic jar he got to catalog all by himself- his first artifact. At the time, he had been lead to believe he had found it while "helping" at a dig. Now, he was certain it had been planted in the loose sand waiting for Professor Aap to find it. No sharp edges to cut his pudgy hands on, sturdy enough for him to get a grip on it.

He blinked away tears that always showed up when he thought of his parents. How they managed to raise him and teach him while traveling the world. Living for months at a time in tents, modern nomads. When his parents had died, he'd expected to swap deserts for the jungle, Nick's territory. Instead, he'd been left in a different jungle with strangers. Buildings blocking the sun, concrete preventing digs, trees you weren't allowed to climb. Children who thought he was weird instead of adults who thought he was endearing and adorable. New parents who didn't understand him or know what to do with him, instead of real parents who encouraged him and challenged him. Thrust into a world he didn't know how to navigate or fit into.

That was why he threw himself into academics. Everything there had rules and order. And the most important reason: the sooner he finished, the sooner he was free to return to his real home. Back to the deserts, to exploration, to digging, to discovery, to his roots.

To his family.

That hadn't worked out too well for him.

He and Nick had struggled to get along after Nick left Daniel in New York. The younger doctor kept pushing himself into his work; it was the only thing that made sense to him. The only thing they connected on. The only thing they agreed on… to a point. Then it became the final straw that demolished the small family home they had cobbled together.


	2. Chapter 2

FOUR YEARS EARLIER

"Daniel," the receptionist greeted him with a smile. "Nick will be glad to see you back so soon."

"I promised him I'd stop by after a conference I went to," he smiled at her, signing in. He was a regular visitor, he knew the drill. "How's he doing?"

"He's having a good day. You coming by will make it better." She buzzed the doors open. "I believe he's in the courtyard."

He thanked her and breezed through the doors, politely waving at the residents that recognized him. Just as he'd been told, Daniel found Nick on a bench in the courtyard talking with another patient.

"Hey, Nick!" Daniel called as he approached.

"Mijn kleinzoon!" Nick smiled and waved him over.

"We're speaking Dutch today?" Daniel asked, switching languages to accommodate.

"This is Alice, she comes from your ancestral lands," Nick introduced his friend grandly.

"A very fancy way of saying I am Dutch as well," she smiled warmly at him.

"It's nice to meet you. I'm-"

"Daniel, I know," Alice finished for him, shaking his hand. "Nick speaks of your quite often."

"Not sure how I fell about that," Daniel joked.

"He didn't tell me how handsome you were," she continued.

"He needs a haircut," Nick interrupted.

"And a good meal," she added. "You are too skinny. Does your wife not feed you?"

"I'm not married," Daniel admitted.

"He's still a boy," Nick admonished Alice. "And, most importantly, he is a Ballard. Ballard men do not settle until we are ready."

"From what I see, Ballard men don't settle at all," she shot back.

"Only when it is time," Nick insisted.

"What time do you have left, you old fool?"

"Did I interrupt?" Daniel asked carefully. With Nick, there was a fine line between banter and anger, especially with whatever woman he was flirting with at the time.

"Do yourself a favor and don't waste your time," Nick told him emphatically. "Women are never grateful for what you give them."

"Nick," Daniel started.

"Leave me to my grandson," Nick ignored him and addressed Alice. "Before you smother him, too."

She huffed, exasperated. She mumbled a Dutch insult that didn't translate to anything sensible Daniel could come up with. "I will see you for dinner?" she asked Nick.

"Of course," he seemed insulted that she thought he might not join her.

Satisfied, she nodded. "It was nice to meet you," she said to Daniel as she left with a smile.

"You, too," he called after her, and then to Nick, "Did she just call you a tuberculosis acorn? Or did I completely misunderstand?"

"Never settle for a woman who won't stand up for herself," Nick told him. "A real woman has fire; a real man embraces her fire."

"So, we're not going to talk about the acorn thing?" Daniel sat on the bench next to Nick.

"Passion and strength," Nick kept going. "That's what you need in a woman. Not these little girls who beg for your attention and follow you around like a puppy."

"Are you talking about Sarah?" Daniel asked an edge in his tone.

"If she cannot spend an evening without you there to validate her she is a little girl- not a woman."

"Knock it off," Daniel warned. "You don't like Sarah, I get it. But, you don't get a vote. Understand?"

"You shouldn't marry a girl like that."

"Who's talking about marriage? We're dating. Besides, weren't you just telling Alice that Ballard men don't settle?"

"It's the Jackson half I worry about," Nick said with a gleam in his eye.

Smirking, Daniel rolled his eyes. Nick loved getting in a good shot at his father. Just to get the blood flowing. Daniel could distantly remember the sarcastic and good-natured arguments Nick and his father would get into. The Dutch vs the Welsh, Mayan vs. Egyptian, father vs. son-in-law. Every topic they took opposite sides, challenging the other to a battle of wits. No one ever won. No one ever lost. Everyone always laughed.

"If the Jackson half is so hopeless what does it mean that Mom married one?" Daniel asked, rising to the bait. He wasn't as good at it as his father had been, but he was working on it.

"Momentary fit of insanity, I suppose," Nick answered. "Apparently it runs in the family."

"Not funny." Daniel didn't like it when Nick joked about mental health.

"It isn't," Nick agreed, sighing. "But it is apparently true."

"You read it?" Daniel asked. He had been hopeful when he sent Nick a copy of his paper. Now he already regretted it. "What did you think?" he asked carefully.

Nick stared at a cloud in the distance, thinking before answering. "It was well written," he started. "Thoughtfully researched."

"You think so?" Maybe hope was the right reaction. "I wanted to leave it a bit open-ended. Not try to change the world, just start the discussion."

"You did well to emphasize it is only a theory."

"Exactly. I can't fully prove it, yet," Daniel allowed himself to get excited. "But here is a fair amount of evidence pointing to-"

"You mustn't publish it," Nick cut him off sternly.

"You just said it was well written and thoughtfully researched." Daniel was crestfallen.

"It is. You have a great talent for the written word. But, you cannot claim aliens built the pyramids and expect to be taken seriously."

"That's why it's a theory," Daniel insisted. "I'm not saying it's absolutely true, though I think it is, I'm saying it's a possibility."

"You will be laughed out of every respectable academic circle there is."

"Nick, if no one puts an idea out there then we can never move forward as a society. Prove me wrong; prove me right, it doesn't matter. The point is to keep the conversation going, to keep people thinking outside the box. To keep us from getting complacent."

"Which you do quite well, Daniel," Nick told him. "You have always been able to see what no one else can. It is a great gift."

"Just one I'm supposed to keep quiet about."

"This time, yes."

"Why?" Daniel demanded.

"Because you will ruin everything you have worked your entire life for."

"Don't be melodramatic, Nick."

"I am speaking from experience. If you publish that paper you will be a laughing stock."

"Not if I can prove I'm right. And I can. I will," he insisted.

"The only thing you will prove is that a fool begat a fool," Nick snapped at him. "A crazy old man and a crazy boy."

"Skipped a generation there, Nick, didn't ya?"

"Oh, your mother. Your poor mother. You would do such a thing to her memory?" Nick put his head in his hands.

"And my theories are such an insult?" Daniel balked. "More than you and our damn skull?"

"Because of me and that damn skull." They were yelling now. Each as bad as the other.

"I'm not you, Nick."

"But you are making the same mistake. Just listen to me."

"Why? Why should I have to listen to you? I'm good at what I do. I'm damn good." He slammed his fist on the bench. "You can't hold me responsible for your mistakes."

"I am holding you responsible for yours," Nick pointed is fingers in his grandson's face. "Drop this nonsense."

"It's not nonsense."

"It is."

Daniel shook his head and scowled, refusing to get into an is-not-is-too argument. They were attracting enough attention as it was.

"Daniel," Nick said quietly, kindly. "Even if you are right-"

"I am."

"Regardless. Right or wrong is not the issue. Archaeology is not ready for this. It doesn't matter how well written."

"Of all people, I thought you would be behind me on this."

"I will be behind you on anything else you do. But not this."

"I am going to publish it," Daniel said resolutely.

"Stubborn, spoiled little…" Nick mumbled angrily.

"Spoiled," Daniel snorted.

"You act it."

"I worked my ass off for everything I have. I had to pull all this off on my own. No one handed me this."

"All on your own, did you?"

"Yeah."

"Do you really think the son of Mel and Claire Jackson wasn't going to catch anyone's attention? How many times did your family show up on the syllabus? How many papers of theirs were you assigned to read? How many times was their work discussed in lectures?"

Daniel didn't answer. He'd spent years banking on how common the name Jackson was, ducking in his seat when professors got the details wrong. When he knew better because he had been there.

"You benefit from their hard work," Nick told him. "You stand on what they built. They opened the doors for you." Nick put a hand up to keep Daniel from interrupting. "You did great things when you got inside. You've earned your place. And you will continue to do amazing things, but if you insist on this foolishness you will ruin far more than your own reputation."

"You didn't."

"Grief can do many things to a man," Nick said looking Daniel in the eye. "I'm not proud."

"You lecture me about tarnishing their reputation, but take advantage of it for yourself," Daniel was dumbfounded.

"I did it for you."

"You never did anything for me," Daniel snapped.

"This again," Nick threw his hands up. "Always this again."

"This again," Daniel repeated. "Until you give me a reason."

"I will not have this discussion again."

"We've never had this discussion. I ask and you change the subject," he accused.

"There is nothing to say."

"Nothing to say? You always have something to say. You have an opinion on everything."

"Which you ask for and then ignore."

Daniel went quiet again, blood boiling.

"Let us not fight," Nick said resolutely. "No more of this."

"This is exactly what I'm talking about," Daniel did his best to keep his tone even and calm. "You always change the subject."

"Because living in the past will do us no good. We must stay in the present and rejoice in what we do have," Nick tried to give Daniel an encouraging smile. "Tell me, how did your lecture go?"

"I didn't speak at this one, I just went," Daniel admitted. "It was regarding South American exploration. I went for you, remember?"

"Do you have any lectures booked?" Nick always knew how to zero in on Daniel's short-comings.

"Not right now," he sighed.

"You don't publish, you don't speak? How will anyone know what you are working on? How do you expect to make a living?"

"I have something to publish," Daniel pointed out. "Which will lead to speaking engagements."

"You have been working on something else?"

"No."

"You waste your talents."

"Do I?" Daniel asked. "Or do I not work on what you want me to? You tell me to come up with something original, to make my discovery. And when I do, you tell me to shut up and get back in line. You tell me to carry on the family name, to follow in your footsteps and when I do you tell me I'm ruining everything."

"Now who's being melodramatic?"

"Nothing I ever do is good enough for you." Daniel looked away, chewing on his bottom lip.

"You do this job for me?"

"That's not what I said."

"Then tell me. What do you mean?"

"I don't… I don't know," Daniel admitted. His head always got so muddled around Nick.

"Then how should anyone else?"

Defeated, Daniel put his elbows on his knees, studying his scuffed loafers.

"You still think you're going to publish that stupid paper," Nick accused him.

"It's not stupid, or foolish, or nonsense," he defended himself weakly.

"What would your parents think?" Nick tried a different tactic. "Their son, the boy they love so much, making such a mistake? How would this make them feel?"

Something in Daniel snapped, his blood boiled, his face went red, and his back went rigid. "Oh, no. No. You don't get to do that," he spat at Nick. "You don't get to pull them into this."

"Oh? I worry for my Claire. I worry for her son. This is my right."

"Yeah? You think so? Where was that worry when I was eight, huh? When you abandoned me?"

"I did not abandon you!"

"You left me with complete strangers instead of worrying about what Mom would think. You left me in a world I knew nothing about, completely alone. How do you think she felt about that, huh? If you didn't think about it then, I don't have to think about it now."

"I did what I thought was best."

"You did what was easy."

"My life was no way to raise a boy."

"Mom and Dad thought it was okay. I'm sure they felt it was the right thing."

"It was different for them."

"How? That's how you raised Mom. That's how she was raising me. How is it different?"

"What do you want from me? An apology? I have nothing to apologize to you for."

Daniel rolled his eyes, looking away.

Nick sighed, "I am only asking you to consider how your parents would feel when…"

"You want to know how Mom feels?" Daniel asked, no longer able to contain his anger and frustration. Nick hurt him- he wanted to hurt Nick back. "You want to know what she thinks about all this? Nothing. She's dead. She doesn't feel anything."

Nick slapped him. Hard. "Self-righteous little brat," he growled. "How dare you."

"It's true," Daniel stood his ground, even though he already knew he was wrong. He crossed the line. He deserved what he got.

Orderlies appeared at their bench, an argument was one thing, but they couldn't let it get physical. "Dr. Ballard," one of them asked. "What's going on?"

"Get him out of here," Nick told them, first in Dutch, then correcting to English.

"Are you alright?" the second orderly asked Daniel.

"I'm fine, I was just leaving," Daniel stood up, embarrassed that he let it get this far. That he let Nick get under his skin.

"If you publish that rubbish, don't come back," Nick told him.

"What?" Daniel stared down at him, unable to process what he had just heard.

"You heard me."

Daniel scowled down at Nick. "The one thing you ever taught me how to do. Leave."


	3. Chapter 3

Daniel carefully arranged the already overburdened bookshelf, adding the books and artifacts he'd brought home from Nick's. Most of the photos would be added to an album. He felt weird putting out pictures of himself. Except for his favorite- that one would be staying out.

The last box was all the papers and files from Nick's desk. Daniel settled down at his kitchen table with a glass of wine. Most of the stuff was trash as far as he could tell, half-written letters to old friends, bills from years ago, notes that didn't make much sense…

He came across the draft of an unpublished paper. Skimming it over, it seemed pretty good. He may posthumously publish it after a bit of editing. Tempted to abandon his sorting in favor of a bit of research and editing, Daniel moved the paper aside to keep from getting distracted. He sifted through some more bills hoping they had been paid and wouldn't come back to bite him- he'd just paid off his own debt after years of late fees and collection notices. A green folder caught his eye. It was overstuffed and closed with a rubber band. Inside was a pile of documents. The first was a copy of his philology dissertation followed by anthropology and archaeology.

Intrigued, he kept flipping through the folder finding copies of all his published works, some printed off the internet, some torn out of trade journals, all present and accounted for in chronological order. Every now and again he found a handwritten response paper, arguments, and defenses for his own work.

Nick had taken him seriously as a colleague but never gone public with it out of fear of pulling his grandson down with him. He had tried to protect Daniel from his reputation, to keep him from being judged for Nick's mistakes.

The name Jackson didn't immediately call to mind Nicholas Ballard until he'd forced it. Daniel got caught up in his own reputation as the wunderkind of archaeology, the genius who was going to revolutionize the discipline and published the paper that- as everyone had warned him- ruined him. After that, the parallel was drawn immediately. Claire Ballard-Jackson had been the anomaly of the family or perhaps died before whatever pushed her father and her son over the edge got to her.

Daniel never did admit to Nick he'd been right. That everyone had been. So caught up in his own problems and lost in his own angst he'd squandered the one chance he had to apologize, admit that he made a mistake publishing…

 _The Old Kingdom and the IV Dynasty_

There it was. Nick had kept a copy. The last paper in the folder. The copy was marked with notes and questions in Nick's handwriting. It was like he had been preparing a formal critique that he never got around to writing. Curious, Daniel read it over. A defense. Nick had been preparing a defense. In the margins, names of other archaeologists and paper topics were scribbled down with the occasional date, papers that must have backed Daniel's claims. How had he missed so much support? How could he have overlooked so much? How had he allowed himself to get so lost in his own head?

A jolt of adrenaline shot through him and he jumped to his feet looking for his keys and jacket. He needed to get to the library and see if he could find any of these papers. He was steps away from the door when he thought to look at his watch. Nearly midnight.

"Get a grip, Danny," he told himself out loud, putting his things back.

He'd done enough for one day. He went back to the table and closed the file. He gulped down the last of the wine, if for no other reason than to slow down his thoughts. He'd end the night on a high note.

Nick believed him, defended him in his own way. They'd made amends, made up and had much more friendly last words to remember each other by.

Before heading to bed, Daniel went back to the box off photos, digging through it until he found the one he wanted. Nick and Daniel side by side in jungles of Peru. The only dig they had done together, the summer after he'd completed his masters.

The Ballard men. The crazy old man and his crazy grandson who believed in aliens.

That one was going on the mantle.


End file.
